ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—You could be a player standing 20 feet from where the football is snapped during a Broncos practice. Or you could be a late-arriving training camp fan sitting 500 feet away atop a grassy knoll with a row of hospitality tents blocking your view of the field. Either way, you could hear Peyton Manning standing behind his new offensive line, yelling pre-snap directions at his teammates and, more often than not, a two-word command:

Hurry! Hurry!

The word is spoken to keep the offense at the rapid-fire pace that Manning prefers—and has perfected through his previous 14 seasons with the Colts. But it can also apply to other areas: the urgency with which the 36-year-old quarterback is operating after his brush with career mortality, the need to get up to full speed in the Broncos’ system, the desire of the defense to catch up to Manning and not let his precision send its confidence spiraling.

Manning didn’t hurry back from his four neck surgeries that resulted in a missed 2011 season and helped hasten his departure from Indianapolis. He was forced to take his time and gradually ease back into something approximating his old self. But the moment he began working against a defense in practice in May, the tempo began to accelerate—for Manning as well as the offensive and defensive units.

LEARNING A NEW OFFENSE

Denver is a new start for Manning, not just in terms of surroundings and teammates but also in terms of the offense. After his rookie season in Indianapolis, he never had to learn a new system; the offense that then-coordinator Tom Moore installed in 1998 endured for the next 14 years.

On the surface, it looks similar to what Manning ran in Indianapolis: plenty of shotgun snaps, myriad calls and checks at the line of scrimmage, tight ends used like inside receivers and short timing routes designed to nick at a defense like paper cuts rather than going for the big gash downfield. But the basic nomenclature isn’t from Moore’s playbook, it’s from that of offensive coordinator Mike McCoy, who arrived in Denver in 2009. That has eased the burden on the returning players on offense, who are expected to fill eight starting spots.

“It’s pretty different,” said tight end Jacob Tamme, who followed Manning from Indianapolis in free agency. “There’s similar things there, but I’ve certainly had to learn a lot. There’s a lot of different things we should be able to do offensively, and that should help us.”

Beyond the language, the balance between rushing and passing also will change from what Manning ran in Indianapolis two years ago. It won’t simply be about Manning passing at least 40 times a game, as he did during his last complete season, when his season total of 679 attempts was the second-highest in league history.

The Broncos rushed for a league-best 2,632 rushing yards last year. That was in part because of the run-centric strategy that followed Tim Tebow’s insertion into the starting lineup in the fourth game of the season. But the Broncos’ running backs were the true driving force of the ground game, averaging 118.8 yards per game and 4.6 yards per carry, with Willis McGahee becoming the franchise’s first 1,000-yard back in five years—a gap that seemed inconceivable when the Mike Shanahan-era Broncos manufactured 11 1,000-yard backs in 12 seasons from 1995 to 2006.

It took a new coaching staff with barely any connection to the Shanahan years to get the Broncos back to their old, churning identity. Now that they’ve rediscovered it, they won’t go back—even with Manning firing passes. And Manning would prefer that the decisive, power running that helped resuscitate the Broncos last year carry over to his stewardship.

“He wants some new ideas and to run some new things,” McCoy said. “There’s a lot of things he hasn’t done, that he’s excited to look at, (to) get in some two-back situations. ... We’ve had a lot of success with that here in the past couple of years, so we’re going to continue to build that.”

The Broncos were successful running last year, and that was despite the fact defenses frequently crowded eight or nine men into the box, something they could do because Tebow wasn’t taken seriously as an aerial threat. No defensive coordinator will have that luxury against Manning.

“If they want to play pass and play eight guys in coverage, you’ve got to be able to hurt them with the run, and if they want to pile them in the box and stop the run, you’ve got to be able be beat them one-on-one,” Manning said. “That’s a pretty simple explanation, but it really comes down to executing different phases of the football game.”

No matter how quickly Manning wants everything to come together, it will take time for the offense to execute like he wants—see the two interceptions Manning threw in Denver’s second preseason game. The Broncos hope the preseason opener was a more accurate forecast: In the first team’s only possession, McGahee got the drive moving on its second play with an 11-yard carry; six plays later, Manning successfully exploited the Bears’ zone coverage, waiting 5 seconds until wide receiver Eric Decker—the fifth read on the play—flashed open near the left sideline. Manning’s pass was perfect, beating two defenders by a step for a 19-yard gain on third-and-17.

“It’s so smooth, man,” says Broncos offensive tackle Chris Clark. “He rolls through it, (saying), ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,’ and you look across the ball and see that the defense is tired. I love that. That’s always good for the O-line.”

TEACHING A NEW DEFENSE

What’s good for the offense can tire out a defense, and that’s what the Broncos want—a collection of exhausted defenders unable to get off the field between plays because Manning operates without a pause. When the Broncos play at their mile-high home, they expect this to be a particular advantage.

This summer, the no-huddle work left their own defense gasping as Champ Bailey, Von Miller and the rest of the unit struggled to keep pace. But when they caught their breath, they understood the implications.

“It’s just making us better,” safety Mike Adams said. “It’s getting us conditioned and mentally focused as well because we have to make those calls and get it out quick, because Peyton, he gets the offense going, and once he gets it going, you don’t have time to make that call and there’s a problem.”

No one understands this better than Bailey, the only Bronco with as many Pro Bowls (11) as Manning. Their rivalry dates back to being on opposite sides of the Georgia-Tennessee rivalry in the Southeastern Conference, and their respect for each other only grew from there, to the point that Bailey spent a week in March bombarding Manning with text messages, encouraging him to sign with the Broncos. Manning didn’t respond until after he knew he was coming to Denver, and then he had to type only two words:

Let’s go!

More than any other Broncos defender, Bailey knew what he’d be in for when the practices finally began—a daily test unlike any he had ever witnessed in a career in which he has faced a handful of Pro Bowl quarterbacks in practice: Brad Johnson, Jake Plummer and Jay Cutler. They prodded Bailey, but Manning offered something entirely different.

“His ball placement is so perfect. It’s frustrating because, when you’re all over a guy and he puts the ball here,” says Bailey, gesturing away from his body. “You can’t do anything except break it up or watch (the receiver) catch it.”

A year earlier in practice, passes thrown to Decker and fellow wide receiver Demaryius Thomas near the sideline were as likely to one-hop harmlessly or skip off a defender’s hands as they were to land in the hands of their intended targets. Now, even the best coverage isn’t enough—even when it comes from Bailey, a likely Hall of Famer.

“(Bailey) knew what was coming, but it’s tough when you’ve got Peyton pinpointing and picking a defense apart,” Decker said after one practice when he beat Bailey for a pair of 20-yard passes near the sideline.

Even during organized team activities in May and June, Manning’s pre-snap gesticulations and post-snap accuracy challenged the defense to expand its capabilities. Simply attacking him and the offense wasn’t enough.

If the defense was to grow under new coordinator Jack Del Rio and not become mired in frustration, it had to hurry up and incorporate some more complicated concepts, even with the regular season still three months away.

“We just try to come out here and disguise our coverages,” linebacker Joe Mays said. “Whenever we blitz, we show something different, and whenever we’re in coverage, show blitz. We try to get him off his toes a little bit, but it never seems to work, because he’s just that smart Hall of Fame QB.”

Adds linebacker Wesley Woodyard: “Sometimes we’re used to just standing there, and if we sit there, he’ll pick us apart, and if we show a blitz too early, he’s on top of it and makes a check. Usually that play goes for a big gain. So, you know it’s always helpful to have a quarterback like that. He’s coaching us when we’re out there playing.”

But he’s not spending too much time coaching the defense. After all, Manning is in a hurry, and has the entire Broncos team to carry with him.